Wednesday, July 12, 2006

Just Trying to Do Your Job

My company is in the midst of our yearly evaluations, part of which included completing a survey which asks, "Do you have the tools you need to do your job?" I find it interesting in light of recent stories about AOL employees and a tired Comcast employee. In the two cases that got the most play (if you will) the employee in question was fired. But, as Alison points out, why are they being penalized here?. I mean don't get me wrong, sleeping on the job is grounds for a serious discussion. And I certainly don't know what other events might be in any of these employees employee histories.But, for me, the funny about the Comcast video was that dealing with Comcast was exhausting even for its own employees. I feel less bad about the fact that I have dealt with rude, unhelpful, or unknowledgeable people there as often as not, when I discover that's the kind of service they give their own employees. And it certainly helps explain why they need a four hour appointment window, if their employees need to block out hours of time to get the information they need to assist the customer. (One could suggest more in depth training for their service techs, but I don't want to go crazy here.)When I have frustrating situations with companies, I rarely am looking for a firing. Typically I want reassurance that a process change or training change will occur to help make sure my problem doesn't reoccur. I don't want to experience the same old issues, just with new employees. But maybe that's me.